Here's chapter two: which is actually HALF of what I thought chapter two was going to be, as this is shaping up to be much longer than I thought it would be! Again, there's a lot of introductory stuff going on, but there's a story coming, I promise - at the moment I'm just trying to piece together some of Djaq's possessions and second-impressions of the outlaws.

Chapter Two: The Sword

It was not long after she had returned from the trees that the other outlaws roused themselves, and Djaq watched with mixed feelings of nervousness and anticipation as what she assumed was a typical morning in the forest began. Robin was up first, wide-awake instantly and springing about the campsite like a large, energetic cat.

She approached him quickly as the others stirred, not wanting to draw too much attention to what she needed to ask of him.

"Morning Djaq," he said as she neared. "How did you sl-"

"I will need a weapon."

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged indifferently. "Naturally. What did you have in mind?"

She blinked, a tad surprised. She hadn't expected it to be that easy.

Feeling a little guilty for acting so brisk, she adopted a slightly friendlier tone.

"I know how to handle a sword," she told him.

"Alright. Follow me."

As she scampered a little in order to keep up with his long strides through the forest, she considered the possibility that he wasn't taking her seriously. He still had that semi-indulgent look on his face; the one that suggested he was letting her stay among the outlaws as a special treat he was magnanimous enough to bestow upon her.

But she put her fears to rest as he stopped in front of a tree – one that looked no different from the hundred of others that surrounded her – and dripped his hand into what she realised was a concealed hollow. Glancing over his shoulder, she noticed that the natural hollow of the tree had been deepened and widened by tools, leaving a cylinder shaped cavity in the tree, packed full of weapons. With a glance in her direction, Robin swiftly drew out an astonishing array of artillery and laid them at her feet: bows, quivers, knives, daggers, and three swords of varying sizes and shapes, including – to her astonishment – a curved scimitar.

"We move around a lot, my gang and I," he said. "We don't always know when we'll have to abandon a campsite suddenly, or when we'll be caught unarmed. So we have stashes like this all over the forest."

In his tone, there was a trace of warning, of an unspoken question: are you prepared for this? She answered by leaning over to examine the possibilities.

Naturally, the first sword she picked up was the curved Saracen blade, but almost immediately she had to discard it. It was far too heavy for her. She tried a smaller short-sword instead, balancing it in her palm. It was still heavier than she was used to, but the hilt fit snugly in her palm. As the morning sun broke through the canopy, she caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the blade, and she was struck by the comparison. The blade was short, stocky and grimy, much like the unrecognisable figure gazing back at her from its metallic sheen.

She sliced it through the air with the practiced movements learnt from her brother, her body suddenly recalling the secret lessons in the heat of the hidden courtyard, the training that had to be kept hidden from even their liberally-minded father. Having learnt from her clumsy brother – to whom fighting had come as naturally as her feminine graces had come to her – there was nothing even remotely graceful or fluid about her battle posture. Djaq had favoured force over style, aggressive action against defensive manoeuvres. He'd always been the first to break a stalemate, telling Safiyah that his best bet was to hack the sword through the air, make a lot of noise, and hope his enemy was even less skilled than he was. Despite her recognition that his technique was faulty, as her only teacher, she'd had little choice but to adopt his traits for her own, tempering them with her own acquired sense of balance and alertness.

"This one," she said firmly, and after Robin nodded his acquiescence, she helped him gather up the rest of the weapons.

"Ingenious," she said, as they stacked them back into their hidey-hole, recalling her mother's sound advice: that no man would begrudge a compliment on their own cleverness. Robin gave a bashful shrug. "Will's idea. He's the one who carved out all the trees as well."

She held the blade before her as they returned to camp, feeling defiance at her jailers coursing through her. Her intellect told her it was crude to favour the weight of a sword in her hand over the internal prowess of her mind and its scientific knowledge, but instinct told her differently. With a weapon in her hand, she was no longer helpless, no longer that weak and frightened little slave…the property of someone else…

Never again, she swore to herself as they returned to camp, holding the sword out before her in one hand so as to let her wrist strengthen under the new weight.

She was startled from her concentration at the sound of an odd yelp. She looked up to see Much gaping at her, his eyes nervously flickering from her face to the sword in her hand.

"Do you…are you…do you known how to use that?" he spluttered.

Feeling the eyes of every man upon her, a sharp retort rose to her lips, before an idea sprang to mind: a sure-fire way to win some degree of the respect she needed – if she could pull it off.

"Care to test me?" she asked, mimicking her brother's teasing air, the tone of voice that had never failed to goad Safiyah into taking up whatever challenge Djaq had posed to her.

He looked affronted.

"I will not fight a woman!" he gasped. She pushed down another surge of anger and frustration – if she didn't get rid of this "woman" label quickly, she would never be treated as an equal, either in combat or in the domesticity of the campsite.

"Not afraid are you?" she said archly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Robin grin, and John – sharpening a knife on a fallen log – sit up a little straighter.

"Yeah, Much – not afraid are you?" came a voice from above. She turned to see Allan watching from a high perch of rock that jutted out over the site, his face openly mocking the scandalised-looking man. Below him, in the shadow of a tree, stood Will, who was silently whittling the pointed head of an arrow.

She turned back to Much. Despite feeling a little guilty for taunting him, she couldn't help but appreciate any support that would goad him into fighting her. Now looking a little angry himself, Much marched away in a huff. Her heart sank, but then lifted, and soon began to thud nervously when he emerged with his own sword in hand.

"Frightened of a woman," she heard him mutter indignantly under his breath as he approached and took a fighting stance in front of her. Taking a deep breath and realizing that there was a chance that this may well end badly for her (after all, she'd never seen him fight) she took her own preferred battle stance: feet planted firmly apart, sword gripped in both hands, blade gently tilted toward her opponent, its tip level with her eyes. For a few seconds they simply stood looking at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move, hearing the shuffling of the others around the camp as they pretended to act busy with chores.

She knew full well that they were all watching out the corner of their eyes, and as the stalemate stretched on to a ridiculous degree and sweat began to drip down the side of Much's face, she took her brother's impatience for her own and gently tapped her sword against his.

He reacted with a panicked yell that nearly scared the wits out of her, and began slashing at her with such fervour that she was immediately forced to backtrack on the defensive. Fighting to regain her footing, she managed to duck out of what would have been a particularly painful hack at her torso, and get the advantage with an abrupt sidestep. As he swivelled to follow her movement, she threw her weight down upon her sword, and through it, onto his, pinning it flat against his side. The tactic worked, but in the next fatal moment, she froze. In a real fight, she would have followed up with a head-butt…something she doubted would help her secure a friendship with this testy individual. Her hesitation cost her the fight. Entirely accidentally, in his struggle to release his sword, Much stepped back onto her foot – hard.

Jerking in pain, her balance was lost, and she only just managed to swipe his sword away as it swung around. Stumbling back, it was only a few seconds more before the tip of Much's sword was resting lightly on her stomach, her own sword uselessly dangling from her flailing arms, flung instinctively to either side to prevent herself from toppling over. Much took a deep breath, nodding reassuringly to himself.

"There, you see?" he announced, his face grey and his voice quavering. "Not scared!"

From his vantage point, Allan laughed, like some blue-eyed mockingbird. "She had you worried," he said dismissively. Under the tree, Will's eyes flicked back down to his work.

Burning with frustration at herself, Djaq risked a glance at Robin. His face was thoughtful, and as Much stalked off, he approached.

"I have not held a sword in a long time," she told him, as way of an apology, cringing at how flimsy the excuse sounded. Instead of answering, Robin drew his own sword and took a fighting stance in front of her. There was dead silence over the camp, other men not even pretending to be busy with their tasks any longer.

For a moment she was simply gob-smacked at the sight of the Saracen sword in his hands, her mind immediately flitting back to the previous day, in which she'd been kneeling next to Allan beside the iron mines. Her taste for the absurd had caused a trickle of droll humour to flit through her mind once she had realized that he – an Englishman – had his face demurely covered, whilst she – born to be a modest Muslim woman – crouched beside him with her face exposed to the world. And now she stood facing a weapon of her own people in pale hands, with a straight blade of the English in her own.

Her nerves fought back against uncontrollable desire to laugh, and she swallowed, hoping she didn't look as sick as she felt.

This time Robin struck first, slowly to begin with, allowing her the chance to observe his fighting style and adapt her own, before speeding up. As generous as the gesture was, she knew within seconds that she would loose – Robin fought with the fluidity and grace of a natural-born fighter, whose skills had been honed and perfected with years of discipline and training.

She poured all her effort into simply holding her own, despite knowing that even if she'd been at her best, her proactive and graceless fighting style would be no match for Robin's dancing, effortless movement of feet and sword. It wasn't too long before his sword edge sat gently across her wrists and she was forced to concede. Sweaty and more exhausted than she would have expected, she hoped at least that she'd put up a good fight. He should at least take into account that I've had been underfed for the last six months, she thought, and wondered briefly if reminding him of this fact wouldn't sound too petulant. If Robin didn't believe she could take care of herself in a fair fight, she may as well start cooking their breakfast and making their beds now.

He was looking at her speculatively, and opened his mouth to speak – when a sudden noise rang out over the clearing. She glanced around, startled, and glimpsed what looked like a bell of some crude design clanging up in the treetops.

"That's the eastern road into Nottingham," said a quiet voice. It was Will, speaking for the first time that morning.

"Let's go lads," Robin cried, leaping away like there were springs on the soles of his feet. "Djaq…John…you two stay here."

For a moment her mind was stuck on the unfamiliar word that he'd used – what did "lads" mean? – but the question was soon swept away as she watched the other men scamper around the campsite, fetching their weapons and racing out of sight within the space of a few moments.

"But we haven't had breakfast yet!" Much's voice echoed back through the trees, and then there was silence.

She turned to look at the huge figure of John, who had likewise turned to face her; the expression on his face reflecting what she expected was on hers: total apprehension.

Next chapter: Djaq talks with Little John and begins to settle in to her place among the gang. But things aren't going to run smoothly for that much longer...